Jumping on the Wagon
by Night Strider
Summary: Youhei Mito's incompleteness is absolute, until he figures that the world of Slam Dunk is in fact oh-so gay. In all senses of the word. One shot. Crack-crap, is what I should call this.


Jumping on the Wagon

Disclaimer: I don't own SD boys, Inoue does. The events that follow are not included in the original plot but enjoy anyway.

Summary: Youhei Mito's incompleteness is absolute, until he figures that the world of Slam Dunk is in fact oh-so gay. In all senses of the word. One shot. Crack-crap, is what I should call this.

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Some days he could imagine himself taking a last minute trip to Alaska without burdening himself with goodbyes; some days he could just stretch in the middle of a busy road, sunbathe, get himself killed in the process. If it's just imagining simple things, Mito Youhei could never, ever see himself backing out.

But what he couldn't imagine is himself being actually happy. While the world at large was in a relative state of peace, what was inside him was a tightening presence of incompleteness. He couldn't explain it, however; at least not at first.

So he began searching for answers amidst his surrounding, places you would and not look in, and in a manner so earnest that his friends began suspecting it as an onset of obsession. The obsession grew, much to their frustration, and it followed a steady line upward until the poor man's search tumbled him upon the grounds of Shoyo High, where the first of the series of his eye-opening encounters would grip him to focus. Here, as in the proceeding ones, he bore witness to something bizarre and all at once beautiful. But it was the kind of beautiful that was captivating without being believable, and that made all the difference:

Fujima Kenji and Hanagata Toru holding hands, fingers intertwining as they swung in rhythm, oblivious to the world. And that shared smile on their faces, who else could ever smile like that? Someone happier? It was an illusion, if he'd ever seen one.

He marched out of the zone just in time to see the sun setting down. He didn't look back at the couple, who were walking too slowly as though time would cheat them, because he knew that the picture it would conjure would be too much for him. He didn't want to see people so happy when he himself was suffering from something he couldn't even name, yet. It wouldn't be fair to him.

Around the corner a heterosexual couple argued, their voices rising in an endless string of high pitches. The girl's mascara seemed to have been botched by unmistakable tears while the guy who was causing her much distress was shaking his head, rendered speechless by the things he was hearing. Youhei couldn't bear the sight of it, and so he switched his pace and headed homeward.

The following day brought him to Kainan University. The weather was intense, causing him to dehydrate every so often and utter a low curse along with a gasp. He found the school's cafeteria just a little way from the entrance. A bottle of water was his priority at the moment. As he was digging out the bills from his pocket, he thought he saw a swarm of familiar faces in the crowd. They were too tall to ever avoid attention, and as Mito Youhei strained his eyes a bit harder, he could see Maki Shinichi and Kiyota Nobunaga standing close to each other, Maki's arm on the freshman's shoulder as the other thumbed the latter's chin in a motion to draw their faces closer, if it was possible. An inch short of a kiss, Youhei shrugged. Sometimes it made him wonder if talented people were more licensed to commit shamelessness. Seeing what he saw now confirmed his suspicions.

Yet, they, too, were in undisputed bliss, and as such little was done to lead him to comfort. Even his long education on Skepticism 101 couldn't have offered anything to gainsay it. Feeling his defeat, he traipsed his way out of the area, faraway into a less dense crowd where he believed respite was waiting. But the silence only plunged him into deeper thought.

The day after that landed him on the soil of Ryonan High. Given that this team had more cause than Shohoku or any other to work hard, all the basketball players were gathered inside the gym where they received occasional abuse from the spirited but foul-mouthed jerk they called their coach. Youhei Mito decided to take a peek inside and was getting the hang of it when the manager whistled a timeout. At her cue the groups piled to one side, sipping water from their jugs to quench hours' worth of dedicated labor.

Then--he couldn't have mistaken it from where he stood--he saw Sendoh Akira plant a kiss on Koshino Hiroaki's head. He could have screamed or gone out of his mind, but he figured anything more than a twitch would give away his position. So with difficulty, he fought all urges against hysteria. He replayed the kiss over; it was so sudden that it was hard to give it the blow-by-blow treatment. All he could tell, apart from it happening, was that it was consensual. Not a stolen kiss nor even a friendly one, but a gesture of habit, an occurrence of the everyday kind. The episode lingered in him long after the game had resumed, long after Youhei had assigned several interpretations to it--none of them as convincing as the original. It would abide by him from then on, etched on his memory like a first kiss that was entirely his own.

But above everything else, he imagined they--Sendoh and Koshino--were filled with sweet things to say to each other. Simply put, sick of happiness, whereas he himself was going to be just plain sick. Seeing is believing, so they say. He turned away from the building with a heavy heart, so heavy that it seemed to collect weight the farther he walked away. He was willing to drag it, he knew, if it meant taking his mind off of what he just saw. Ahead of him lay a long stretch of pavement.

The next day caught him giving up on his enterprise. It was fruitless to begin with, not to mention causing him every ounce of chance at happiness. The message was clear: they were happy and he wasn't. The world didn't give a damn and intended to remain the same, unless he himself swapped places with those guys in order to have that controversial taste of intoxicating joy. And he wouldn't. He couldn't for the life of him.

To keep his head floating above ground, he decided to do what he did best: making fun of Sakuragi Hanamichi at practice.

"Kaede, give me the ball!" Sakuragi called out as both squads streamed into the other half of the court.

"Here, Hana."

A fast ball, then a perfect catch. In a matter of seconds, Sakuragi was gliding gracefully through the air on his way to the basket. Slam. The net shivered upon contact with the rotating leather. And Team A broke into cheers, Sakuragi fattening with praises, chest swelling, eyes further reddening.

Something wasn't quite right, Youhei thought. At the same instant Sakuragi and Rukawa exchanged a high five.

Youhei Mito forgot his disappointment in Sakuragi's spectacle on the spot. He came there to watch the redhead make a blunder of himself, to get himself entertained, and not to be prevented from it by an inspired performance. More than anything, he didn't come to watch his friend go all lovey-dovey with someone who a month ago was his mortal enemy. Not Rukawa. For fuck's sake not the fox.

His heart sunk further as the two walked toward the dugout side by side as the tips of their shoulders graced each other. While this was none too provoking as the display put on by the couples at Shoyo, Kainan, and Ryonan, it was nonetheless exhibiting the same degree of affection subject to both Sakuragi's and Rukawa's dispositions. They were first-timers in this, hence the low-key approach, but this didn't mean that they wouldn't end up shacking up and sleeping together one of these days. Only a matter of time, weeks standing between them and their deflowering. Gosh! It took all he had to stop himself from imagining the act.

"What's up, Mito? Feeling alright?"

Youhei spun around to face the owner of the voice. Mitsui Hisashi was glancing at him as if he just forgot to put his pants on.

"It's that." He nodded at the direction of the two freshmen. "Since when did they become friends?"

"Oh, them. Amazing, isn't it? You'd think those two would be at each other's throat for life, but will you take a look at that? Anyway, it happened a few days ago. We were having a drink at Akagi's and I think somebody dished out this video--"

"Spare me the details. I was asking when exactly it happened." Youhei gritted through his bare teeth, his voice stern.

"Three days ago. They've been inseparable ever since." Mitsui said as if it explained everything, and it did. He was smiling. "Actually good for the team to have those two cooperating finally."

"Good for the team," Youhei repeated. Inside him, his flesh seethed with rage. "If he was such a fag all he had to do was tell me."

"Excuse me?" Mitsui was now eyeing him with a frown. "If you're not comfortable, I'd say you can step out anytime. Sakuragi is having a good time with Rukawa and it's not for you to decide whether it's right or not."

"What do you care?"

"I'm his teammate."

"Sounds more like you're of the same kind." Youhei retorted. Soon as he finished this, his eyes widened in realization. "Don't tell me..."

"Kogure and I are happy, thank you very much." Mitsui declared. "You can't help what you feel, but if you can't square off with it, why not try the alternative?" the senior finished and wheeled to the opposite direction, leaving Mito flinching and open-jawed.

Just then, something rang and Youhei could tell that the team's break was over. One by one they cantered to the center, prepping themselves up for another twenty minutes of action-packed defense and offense. Pretty soon, rough pushes and pulls dominated the contest and began resembling a wrestling match. Shohoku had seen few more exciting showdowns, one could tell.

Youhei Mito stood watching the game unfold without interest or concentration. Mitsui's words--particularly the way he stressed on 'happy'--kept him from steadying his socked feet on the hardwood.

Everyone is gay, he mumbled to himself. Homosexuality is taking the world by storm. It's like the Black Plague, unrelenting, claiming everyone it pleases. Why did he have to look very far? The answer was here all along. The evidence was too solid to deny, disprove. He looked back on all the couples he had the misfortune to observe and came to the ultimate conclusion. Their common denominator: Happiness. Ergo--and this was too obvious already--the key to happiness is being gay.

Thus came the final blow; Youhei Mito's obsession skyrocketed, shoring up to the far limits of his imagination. He too could be happy if he chose to, if he pursued it. He continued in this line of argument, thinking that the right was also his from birth. Nothing more, nothing less.

Back in the real world Akagi Takenori grabbed a rebound and took off from the floor to execute a perfect, double-handed dunk. In a snap Youhei knew that he only had to take the risk. Thrust his hands out and see if they get burned, he didn't care anymore. He thought of Fujima and Hanagata, of Maki and Kiyota, of Sendoh and Koshino, the Shohoku love teams, and understood from their actions the things and principles they had to sacrifice to get to this piece of heaven. They broke the big rule right through the core of the barrier. Whether they were a success or not, they themselves were the judge of that. And yes, they were happy.

And hence, amidst the heap of overwhelming mess that was his thoughts, Youhei Mito swore in the name of happiness that he would make his move soon after the match was over.

"Yes, that's the one." he smirked and continued gazing at Akagi's suddenly covetous figure. It was going to be the shot of his life.

END

A/N: Obviously, there can only be one result from this: He's going to get beaten because Akagi is damn straight.

And this is not really to bash yaoi. I actually write yaoi. It's just that... yeah, no good reason.


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